


A Man's Conviction

by wesleyfanfiction_archivist



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-05
Updated: 2006-04-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 07:58:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7093369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesleyfanfiction_archivist/pseuds/wesleyfanfiction_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is Wesley able to hold true to his beliefs and do the best that he can for Faith? Goes AU from <i>Salvage</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Man's Conviction

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [WesleyFanfiction.net](http://fanlore.org/wiki/WesleyFanFiction.Net). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [WesleyFanfiction.net collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesleyfanfiction/profile).

**A Man’s Conviction**

He strokes her hair but she sleeps on. A girl with superpowers, yet he knows she’s just a girl, who shouldn’t have to decide and draw the line between hate and love. To everyone else, she’s the saviour come to do battle with the devil he unleashed on the world. The beast who killed the woman he’d been spine-tinglingly fucking. In the deepest, darkest recesses of his brain, for Lilah, he discerns the ability to care.

He remembers. In fact, too well. How could he ever fathom forgetting? When he constantly turns over each and every one of his life’s reservoir of memories of hurts dealt him. He’s been negotiating the pain most recently by confrontations with the bottom of fine Glenfiddich bottles. So he remembers, the way the knife had cut, first making him feel adrift from the world then biting most viciously back with searing pain. The heat from her fiery torch, the cool response that should have scoured him with release. But didn’t.

She was to be _his_ saviour, his redemption from the lacerations of his father’s tongue, from the pointed whispers behind covered hands of all he’d failed to be. But instead that came in the form of the creature he’d been taught to hate. Oh the twisted web he weaves.

He runs his finger across her face and he can touch the memory of heat, the sparks caress his fingertips, fly at his skin from her remembered bonfire touch.

He’s frightened. But resolute. He wants them to win. He wants the demon to win too.

With calculated precision, he takes a pillow and places it over her face. The element of surprise is a necessity because, awake, she could overpower two of him.

She struggles, valiantly. He knew she would. But he is saving her from the disease of an angel’s care. Once bound, never released. He knows she will never do it. She is damned before she begins. He gives her the gift of certainty, of never having to choose.

Rebelling, faltering, stumbling, her body mutinies from the fight and whispers to a close. He removes the pillow and gently kisses her eyes shut. Somewhere another Slayer has been called.

One girl in all the world who will have absolutely no compunction about killing Angelus. No memory of the man that bears his face. The man who cared for the girl now released.

_Finis_


End file.
